Hot Topics:

German education minister says she won't resign

By DAVID RISING Associated Press

Updated:
02/06/2013 08:56:53 AM EST

Click photo to enlarge

FILE - in this Dec. 13, 2012 file photo German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, talks to Education Minister Annette Schavan during a session of the German parliament Bundestag in Berlin, Germany. Schavan says she will not resign after a university stripped her of her doctorate because of plagiarism, and vowed to fight the ruling. Speaking on a trip to South Africa on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013, Schavan said she "will not accept" the school's decision and would take legal action against it.

BERLIN—Germany's education minister said Wednesday she will not resign after a university found she had plagiarized parts of her thesis but will instead to fight the ruling—a major embarrassment for the government in an election year.

Annette Schavan, 57, is a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the second minister in her Cabinet to lose a doctorate because of plagiarism. Former Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned in 2011 after it emerged he copied large parts of his thesis.

Duesseldorf's Heinrich Heine University voted Tuesday to remove Schavan's doctorate after a thorough review of her 1980 thesis undertaken after an anonymous blogger raised plagiarism allegations.

On an official trip to South Africa, Schavan, who has always denied the allegations, said she would fight the ruling.

"I will not accept the University of Duesseldorf's decision and I will take legal action against it," she told reporters Wednesday in Johannesburg, the dpa news agency reported.

Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said that the chancellor had been in contact with Schavan and "has the fullest confidence in her."

But the university's decision prompted calls from opposition politicians for Schavan's resignation, saying that she was in an untenable position because her ministry is responsible for education and science.

Advertisement

"She needs to step down because she can no longer be regarded as a role model and is harming science," Andrea Nahles, the general secretary of the opposition Social Democrats, said according to dpa.

Doctorates are highly prized in Germany, where it is not unusual for people to insist on being referred to by their full academic title. Falsely using a doctoral title is a criminal offense and can be punished with a fine or up to one year in prison.

The incident comes as the country is gearing up for national elections on Sept. 22, with Merkel's governing coalition with the Free Democrats currently neck-and-neck in the polls with a likely opposition coalition of the Greens and Social Democrats. Merkel's Christian Democrats remain the strongest party, according to polls.

Bruno Bleckmann , the head of the academic committee that voted 12-2 to remove Schavan's doctorate, said her thesis "contains a substantial number of uncredited direct quotes from other texts."

Schavan also failed to cite the works she used in her footnotes or bibliography, leading the committee to conclude that she had "systematically and intentionally claimed intellectual achievements ... that weren't her own," Bleckmann said.

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — A West Texas man has been charged with impersonating an officer by using sirens and flashing lights to skip to the head of the drive-thru line at a fast-food restaurant. Full Story

Sufjan Stevens, "Carrie & Lowell" (Asthmatic Kitty) Plucked strings and pulsing keyboards dominate the distinctive arrangements on Sufjan Stevens' latest album, and in the absence of a rhythm section, they serve to keep time. Full Story